Hope rises for ailing Voice newspapers

Once upon a time, the Benue State Printing and Publishing Corporation (BPPC), publishers of The Voice newspapers made waves in the nation’s media space, particularly in the northern and middle-belt regions of Nigeria. The Voice was established in 1979 by the first civilian Governor of Benue State, the late Governor Aper Aku during the Second […]

Once upon a time, the Benue State Printing and Publishing Corporation (BPPC), publishers of The Voice newspapers made waves in the nation’s media space, particularly in the northern and middle-belt regions of Nigeria.
The Voice was established in 1979 by the first civilian Governor of Benue State, the late Governor Aper Aku during the Second Republic, in the days of National Party of Nigeria (NPN) to be precise. It was officially commissioned in 1982 by president at the time, Alhaji Shehu Shagari. It was first called Nigerian Voice.
At that time, it was a national newspaper that was being reviewed on a daily basis by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). The Voice was producing between 12, 000 and 14, 000 copies daily which circulated nationwide particularly in northern states. And because of the demand for the paper, the management was running two editions (northern and southern editions).
Nigerian Voice then served as a megaphone for northern Nigeria and a backup to New Nigerian Newspapers (NNN) while it had offices in all northern states and Lagos as well as correspondents in all the states.
The current General Manager of the newspaper, Mr. Ben Ebe recalled the early days, saying, “The newspaper was well received nationwide at inception because of the caliber of editorial staff and editorial content. It was like a market place of professionals. We had people from Plateau State. We had Yoruba, Igbo, and Kanuri staff members and even people from Ghana. All parts of Nigeria constituted the then Nigerian Voice. It was very vibrant and very professional and then, the contributions of the staff was not restricted just for the interest of Benue but the interest of Nigeria, particularly the North. So, it was accepted nationwide and became popular as our slogan called it: The paper that tells it as it is.”
Ebe said the staff strength at inception in 1982 was 220, as against only 113 staff today producing and circulating barely three to four thousand copies weekly to mostly Benue and minimally to Nasarawa and Taraba states.
Daily Trust on Sunday gathered that the newspaper stopped daily edition during the Rev. Fr. Moses Adasu’s administration (January 1992 – November 1993) and became three or two times a week consistently until about four years ago when it became once a week, every Friday, with a circulation of 3000 averagely due mainly to problems with production machines.
Today, the media organization boasts of only two external correspondents in Lafia and Jalingo with other correspondents in local government areas within the state while dilapidated structures dot the head office of the previously befitting outfit.
The Voice‘s first substantive editor was James Jukwe who edited the paper for one year and was redeployed to circulation but never reported for one day. He later left and joined The Democrat (a newspaper then published in Kadun but now rested) as a pioneer staff. After Jukwe, James Ikyuver edited The Voice, then Mustapha Torwaya, then Bala Dan Abu who was editor in chief. Tivlumun Nyitse also edited the paper after which Prof. St. Gbilekaa also did during Adasu’s administration. Anza Philips, Joe Ode who came from Newswatch, the late Julius Achin, Dan Okolo and many other big names also edited the paper. Most of the pioneer staff came from the Nigeria Standard in Jos. What was Nigerian Voice was later changed to The Voice newspapers during Dan Okolo’s time.
A management staff of the newspaper who does not want his name in print lamented that what the premises look like now as compared to when it started, depictes a sharp difference between the Nigerian Voice of those days and The Voice of today. “Nigerian Voice was a place that everybody wanted to be, but look at it today. It became this way because since inception, The Voice has never undergone any renovation nor changes in its machines, which were inherited from the then Benue-Plateau State,” the staff said, adding that fortune almost smiled on them when the immediate past administration of Governor Gabriel Suswam, in 2008, supplied BPPC materials worth N49 million to acquire printing plates, newsprints, inks and stationeries. The source said Suswan also awarded a contract worth almost N200 million to do a total renovation and construction of the main building housing the press, editorial, commercial, new GM’s office marketing and production as well as a contract to construct new administrative blocks for finance and administration.
“The administration also acquired a digital web offset machine that would give full color production with capacity of printing 23,000 copies per hour awaiting installation. The idea was to make sure that The Voice is put back in the news stand on a daily basis and to circulate within the northcentral states of Nigeria, Lagos and Abuja,” the source further confided.
Sadly, according to Daily Trust on Sunday findings, these efforts could not see the light of the day up to the assumption of incumbent Governor Samuel Ortom who paid on-the-spot assessment visit to the media house in his first few days in office.
Ortom’s quest to revamp the ailing newspaper led to the termination of the earlier contract awarded to Capital Project which was said to have committed personal resources to begin work even though he was not mobilized by the previous government which awarded the contract. The new government recently re-awarded the contract to System Consultant and paid off the former contractor monies spent on the project when he threatened court action, a development which some insiders blamed on political differences.
However, the Special Adviser on Media and ICT to the governor, Tahav Agerzua told our correspondent that the resuscitation of the newspaper was among one of the new government’s priority but that what is holding it back is the petition from the contractor whose contract was revoked.
Agerzua who was editor of the medium in 1992, added: “We are sorting out the legal issue. Hopefully before this year runs out; government would restore its lost glory.”
Similarly, the GM has expressed optimism that the renovation would be carried out soon and machines installed for The Voice to bounce back on a daily basis again following the current moves by the state government.
Another naughty concern confronting the Voice is the undefined status of the organisation as to whether it should be referred to as a corporation or a company.
This is because the Voice was shut down by the Adasu administration with an aim to reorganize it in a way that it would be self-sustaining. He had wanted to change it from a corporation to a limited liability company, a decision that marked the beginning of the problems of The Voice. Recruitment of editorial and production staff became faulty and there was no working capital that could sustain The Voice at that time and within six months it started owing workers’ salaries. The development continued until David Attah stepped in and convinced the then governor to take over the payment of staff salary. Since then, voice has been limping and not knowing whether it is a corporation or a company.
Commenting on the status, Mr. Ebe explained that the Edit upon which the newspaper was established as a corporation metamorphosed from the then Benue-Plateau and sub-existed when the state was carved out and that in the process of time (Adasu’s period), the government printing press was merged with publishing to form a company as one entity.
He said the pronouncement was verbal without an enabling Edit to repeal the former and without registration merger with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), so its status became a subject of controversy which perhaps only the House of Assembly can now decide.
The general manager nevertheless said that staff salaries are currently paid up to date through the Ministry of Information basically due to the same status question but he admitted that they have started getting subvention since three months ago after the stoppage for about two years and seven months.
“The subvention takes care of production materials and pays our causal workers, though not adequately because the machines we are using now are not for newspaper production. We are actually producing by virtue of lots of sacrifices made by staff,” Ebe said.
The Suswam administration, it was learnt, approved a subvention of N6million monthly for The Voice but due to bureaucracy or whatever else, the newspaper house could not access that kind of amount until 2011 when they began accessing N500,000 monthly and that lasted for only one year until Ortom came along and they now get less than N600, 000 on monthly basis.